Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
by MercilessKillerBunny
Summary: Drabble. Lady Luck is a fickle mistress.


You don't believe in Lady Luck the same way religious people believe in God. Their God is a distant figure, as removed from their everyday lives as can be. A reminder to be good, a reminder easily ignored. A rundown, empty church hidden behind a busy brothel. She is a constant in your life, a big blind, whereas everyone else is playing it safe. Her existence isn't dependent on you believing in her. She doesn't want your adoration nor does she require worshipping. You either are or aren't in her favor.

When she abandons you like a ship leaving port, returning hours later to a destroyed town, it hurts, but the feeling doesn't last for long.

The day the darkness arrives, it's one misfortune after the other, starting with waking up hung over and ending with staring a grinning man with dreadlocks in the eye and answering his challenge: ''Perhaps I will.''

That's not the end of your misfortune, though you hope so at the time.

Not having a heart is a peculiar thing. It's not so simple as not having feelings, like your Superior would have you all believe. The emotions are still there, but there's no force aside from maybe Kingdom Hearts that can make you actually feel them. If you used to be a priest with conviction, unable to vocalize your faith, now you have all the words in all the worlds but nothing left to preach.

You make a game of identifying and putting a name to all the emotions you aren't feeling. You catch Xigbar and Xaldin plotting, think _amusement_, and join them. Later, when your scheme is discovered by Seven, you think _shit_ and run like you still have a life to be running for.

Life in the Organization is not so different from the life before. You play your games – be they poker night with rum, Xigbar and Xaldin, or Go Fish with Demyx and his water clones who are even worse at the game than their master, a fact which never fails to cheer Nine up – and you never lose.

They send you out on missions and you never fail those, either. People are like cards, and no one plays cards better than you.

Visiting Port Royal for the first time is like reuniting with an old friend. The world is foul, with the putrid smell of bodily fluids and sex wafting all around. The people are at least as filthy, diseased and corrupt as the town they live in. It's not difficult to find people to play with you anytime you get sent there. You take their money time and again with no one the wiser because you're a Nobody, there one moment, gone the next, never around long enough to warrant suspicion.

When Castle Oblivion falls and only Axel returns, you realize for the first time in your (non-)existence that the odds aren't in your favor. Probably they never were.

The Organization members are actors in a play, some playing at having feelings, others at _not_. Out of everyone, Roxas is the most convincing because his act isn't really an act at all. He doesn't have memories of before, his non-feelings aren't ruined by the underlying knowledge that they're fake, though not due to a failure on Seven's part to inform him of that. He's the surprisingly good new name in their tragedy, but Axel is the star of the production. He's playing both the part of a good friend and a backstabbing double agent, and he's very adept at both. Whenever he comes on stage, there's no way of telling which role he's acting out.

It doesn't surprise you when Roxas leaves after finally catching on to the true nature of the play. You watch Axel realize that someone has made adjustments to the script and that the role he has been playing all along is actually that of a villain who seduces the leading lady and breaks her heart for his own reasons, only to discover he's fallen in love with her. So it doesn't really come as a surprise to you when Axel sacrifices himself for the Traitor.

That doesn't mean you forgive either of them.

After your initial defeat at the hands of Sora, feeling familiar eyes trying to burn holes through your coat, you think _jealous_ because there's no second chance for you. By fleeing you're just playing for time, delaying the inevitable game over.

Your comrades fall one by one. You had known you wouldn't be winning this game – a gambler knows when to cut his losses, but there's no way for you to escape this Fate – and still you register _surprise_ and _loss_.

Somehow, Demyx's death had never equated into your vision of defeat. Kind, cowardly, no-good-in-a-fight Demyx should never have been sent after the keybearer. He stood no chance.

After that it isn't long before news of Xaldin's fall from grace reach your ears. He was the one who found you in the ruins of your old home world, offering you a purpose _if you were up to it_. His power was synonymous to that of the Organization, and isn't that a comforting thought.

The sounds of fighting echo all over the castle. You don't know how long it takes but when noise ceases to emanate from the Hall of Empty Melodies you know you're up next. _Fear, loss, betrayal._ You wait for the opportune moment to play your part and for the first and last time, you thank Fortune you can't feel the emotions.

And when the keybearer cuts you down, you say your last lines, finally giving in to the pull of the darkness.


End file.
